Vigils Reading – St Jerome

A LETTER FROM ST JEROME

TO ST EUSTOCHIUM

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When the inner man has begun to waver a little between vices and virtues,

say: Why art thou sad, O my soul? And why dost thou trouble me? Hope in

God, for I will give praise to Him: the salvation of my countenance, and my

God. I would not have you permit such a thought to arise. Let nothing that is of

Babylon, nothing of confusion, grow up within you. While the enemy is small,

destroy him. Let wickedness be nipped in the bud.

How often, when I was established in the desert and in that vast solitude

which is scorched by the sun’s heat and affords a savage habitation for monks,

did I think myself amid the delights of Rome! I would sit alone because I was

filled with bitterness. My limbs were roughly clad in sackcloth – an unlovely

sight. My neglected skin had taken on the appearance of an Ethiopian’s body.

Daily I wept, daily I groaned, and whenever insistent slumber overcame

my resistance, I bruised my awkward bones upon the bare earth. Of food and

drink I say nothing, since even the sick drink only cold water, and to get any

cooked food is a luxury. There was I, therefore, who from fear of hell had

condemned myself to such a prison, with only scorpions and wild beasts as

companions. Yet I was often surrounded by dancing girls. My face was pale

from fasting, and my mind was hot with desire in a body cold as ice. Though my

flesh, before its tenant, was already as good as dead, the fires of passions kept

boiling within me.

And so, destitute of all help, I used to lie at Jesus’ feet. I bathed them with

my tears, I wiped them with my hair. When my flesh rebelled, I subdued it by

weeks of fasting. I do not blush at my hapless state; nay rather, I lament that I

am not now what I was then. I remember that I often joined day to night with

my lamentation and did not cease beating my breast until peace of mind

returned with the Lord’s rebuke. I was afraid even of my little cell – as though it

were conscious of my thoughts. Angry at myself and tense, I used to go out

alone into the desert. Whenever I saw some deep valley, some rugged

mountain, some precipitous crags, it was this I made my place of prayer, my

place of punishment for the wretched flesh. And – as my Lord Himself is

witness – after many tears, after fixing my eyes on the heaven, I sometimes

seemed to myself to be surrounded by companies of angels and rejoiced, singing

happily: We run after thee to the odor of thy ointments.